UAE to leave OPEC

In fact it was wars with a strong religious element between Protestant and catholic factions that tore Europe apart for centuries afterwards

The reason is fractured is because of the inherent tribalism within the cultures of the region. Strip away the tribalism (Oman, Qatar, UAE to an extent), concentrate the people near a few cities (Egypt), or provide them a unifying overarching culture (Iran, Turkey), and you get some success. In fact, the early Islamic empires were heavily mired in infighting even though they were "unified" under the Caliphate, in spite of the Prophet's calls for the "Ummah" (One Islamic Nation). I would even argue that Islam's biggest contribution to the region was in providing a specific administrative framework with which to shed the tribal infighting and unite culturally similar but disparate peoples together. It's also why Israel succeeded as a nation with its European flavor of nation-state identity.

An Israeli intelligence officer perhaps correctly attributed it to the past culture of water scarcity and needing to protect your water sources. That is, in the desert, there are only so many sources of water, and if someone steals it away from you, you simply die. So that created a culture of inherent suspicion of outsiders and people outside the clan, even though they all share the same customs and culture.

I think your assessment of whatever the "specific condition" is, is wrong.

Stopped caring about anything he had to say after that, and I also then realized that there was a an entire genre of “person with no actual expertise reads Wikipedia articles and explains them with good lighting and high production quality.”

For what it's worth I watch his videos and he seems to touch on incredibly valuable topics I would never hear about otherwise, like [1].

[1] https://youtu.be/2tuS1LLOcsI?si=b3mS0meBazL0RlcS

i hope so, they have been one of the biggest sources of discord in the Middle East, funding civil wars in Libya, Sudan, Yemen, funding a coup in Egypt.

Of the four never did non signatories, South Sudan is not like the others (wrt one metric at least).

I strongly suspect the average American has absolutely zero sense of how much foreign aid we give Egypt. That's not to contradict your point directly, just that it isn't a very salient part of American politics (unlike Israeli foreign aid).

At some points people need to wonder why.

why does that imply instability?

All of the Gulf monarchies as well as Jordan are essentially western creations that were created as states mostly by the British and then heavily reinforced by the US from the 70s onwards

What about the military exercise though? Al-Jazeera is eagerly covering it, but it is in fact happening...

I'm thinking that two things can be true at once - Egypt sees Israel as a "soft rival" and will undermine it when it can, without risking the peace itself; and Qatar is actively trying to put a wedge between them. No?

(thanks for the thoughtful discussion).

1. As another commenter already pointed out, Iran is not an Arab country

2. It is very true that the Iranian people absolutely does not hate Jews. In most Arab capitals, simply to walk around while visibly Jewish is either risky or downright suicidal. The same is true in other Muslim countries such as Pakistan, and increasingly in majority Muslim neighborhoods in Western cities. Iran does not have this problem. In fact the Iranian and Jewish peoples share a deep bond that goes back to the time of Cyrus the great, who famously freed the Jews of Babylon in 538 BCE, and allowed them to return to their homeland and rebuild their temple. To this day, Iranians and Israelis tend to get along. For example, the Iranian diaspora is conspicuously absent from anti-Israel protests in the US, and you will often see Israeli and pre-revolutionary Iranian flags flying together in anti-IRGC "Free Iran" protests (to the dismay and confusion of pro-IRGC protesters).

3. The current islamic government of Iran - the IRGC - has historically persecuted and executed Iranian Jews, especially in the early days of the revolution. There is a reason so many Iranian Jews live in the US... It is true that they have not implemented a Nazi-style policy of total eradication of their Jewish population, even though their foreign policy is entirely built on total eradication of Jews abroad. But let's be clear: Jews in Iran live in a state of submission and fear. In theory the IRGC is "anti-zionist" and not "anti-Jewish"; in practice the difference is blurry and arbitrary: Jews are eternally suspected of duplicity and disloyalty, and must continuously prove that they are not secretly "zionists". When Iranian Jews make public statements criticizing Israel, they are doing so because of this pressure from a totalitarian regime, and their safety depends on it. A statement by the Jewish community in Iran only reflects what the IRGC wants them to say. A useful comparison is Soviet anti-zionism, which followed similar patterns: Soviet Jews often denounced zionism loudly and publicly, and from the outside it appeared that Jews were a "protected minority" living peacefully. But ask Jews who actually lived in the Soviet Union at the time, and you will hear a very different story...

(Husband and father of daughters).

They also turn a blind eye to plenty of other things that go against conservative islamic values: alcohol is served onboard, gay flight attendants are employed, etc. So it’s surprising to me that they aren’t a bit more tolerant here.

Relying on statements by the Trump administration as proof of this makes it even more spurious.

That said, MBS has done worse and it's not impossible, but alignment with UAE is faltering more and more so it's possible even if they once favored that action by the US they no longer hold the same view.

I am not claiming Saudis want what's best for the region, only that, even if they wanted war with Iran, they likely now no longer do, or at least would like the conflict to wrap up due to the heavy costs its inflicted on the region.

UAE will see the the whole region burn if it means MBZ can keep his seat.

That was the argued point, not the US.

    > untested-in-blue-waters navy

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Trump_Always_Chickens_Out

What's absent from your comment entirely is the humanity and rights of the Palestinians whose presence the Israelis deny entirely. This is what I mean by being detached from reality.

The weakest link won't be the panels themselves, but the grid infrastructure, or telephony infrastructure. Unless somehow the chinese were able to embed a radiowave activated kill-switch or something. Highly doubt it!

So the U.S. will begin to rob and plunder the bank accounts of countries that don't have a bargaining chip?

Is that where the U.S. heading? The daylight roberry of the bank accounts of foreigners?

Taxes. Social Security.

The list is gigantic. Your claim could not be more false.

Ditto with the Sentra and the Versa.

This is my point exactly.

But we are. I don't want to turn this into a political slap fight but it became apparent to me the extent in which people are swayed by advertising when I read an article that talked about how one party in the US was concerned that the other was going to win an important seat becase the other party had done a recent spending surge on ads in last few days before election day and they were concerned that they couldn't match it.

That article right there forever changed my view of the average person on the street. In a highly polarized campaign and political environment with months to years of knowing who the candidates and policies are and they can still be swayed by millions in TV and radio ads? Like it sounds like these people could literally be on their way to vote for a candidate and then switch their mind at the last second because they hear an ad on the radio as they're pulling into the polling station.

That's absurd -- but it's real.

People are completely enthralled by advertisements to the point where they'll buy a stupid truck that they can't fit anywhere, that they need a ladder to climb into, that has terrible sight lines, simply because advertising tells them to.

The problem is those vehicles don’t exist, because the manufacturers only want to build the high margin gas guzzlers.

Look at fuel economy of US made vehicles vs those in Europe. It’s beyond a joke.

You can see this if you go to https://shop.ford.com/showroom/ and select sedan or hatchback in the left filters. No results.

The Balkans are quite fossil-heavy, but solar should be quite feasible there.

Still, unfortunately switching to EVs is not the endgame. We have to stop fossils lower in the supply chain. Otherwise they'll be used for other forms of energy demand and get burned to heat up the atmosphere anyway.

Passenger cars cause roughly 10% of global energy-related CO2 emissions. USA has the world's highest per capita emissions.

[1] Not a 2nd Amendment criticism, I’m a strong supporter. More so the folks who load up on ammo and “cool” gear and all that stuff.

sigh No, it's not. There are 3 aircraft carriers parked in the region, plus US air bases. Iran launched over 2500 missiles at the UAE alone. The US destroyed much of Iran's military, the only thing they have left is the ability to launch missiles and drones at ships or do terrorist style attacks.

But if you want to suggest that the US is a paper tiger here, that just makes everyone a paper tiger. Nobody can stop Iran. Ok.

> The UAE primarily sells its oil to China, which is its largest export partner, followed by countries like India and Japan. the United States cannot do this without not only obliterating energy markets for an ally, but strengthening alliances between china and india. It is likely that should the US attempt such a move, China would respond with retaliatory technology tariffs and a reduction of agricultural trade.

Then we would react with export controls, additional weapons shipments to allies in the region, work with Japan and South Korea to start weapons programs, blockade Chinese trade, there's a million things we can do too.

> the UAE did not "need protection" from any regional military threat until the United States used regional peace talks as cover to launch a surprise attack against Iran. the UAE would still likely be an OPEC member state had the US not unilaterally chosen to obliterate global energy markets for no consistent or clearly defined reason.

And yet, UAE wants the US in the region and in UAE soil. Iran launched over 2500 missiles at the UAE, including civilian targets. Not sure your comment here reflects reality.

> This conflict was well defined as geopolitical suicide for nearly forty years; its what kept the peace.

Things change. US is the #1 energy producing country in the world in terms of oil, gas, &c. We're less dependent on the Middle East, plus we've basically secured the Venezuelan oil supply. Seems to me that what was once geopolitical suicide is no longer the case. We're here today, and life in the US just goes on as normal.

> All simulations and tabletop exercises predicted such an incursion would send global energy markets into panic, trade markets into recession, and produce no meaningful advancement of either regional security or regime change.

TBD

> Iran is backed by powerful allies and has shown numerous times it can meet each US escalation with yet more regional attacks.

Yes, Iran, who is supplying Russia with drones and such for its war against Ukraine is an ally, as is China.

> We have tried escalation and failed, burned through a decade of advanced missiles fighting cheap drones, and have no defined objective politically or militarily for this conflict.

We have not burned through a decade of advanced missiles fighting cheap drones. We can build our own cheap drones and are working on scaling production, and just because you don't understand the political or military objective doesn't mean that there isn't one, however poorly or well-thought it may be.

The US has very much escalated and sits now at the top of the escalation ladder. Iran has been trying to get the US to the negotiating table due to the blockade. Iran can launch its missiles as it likes to at civilian targets in the Gulf. We + allies will just get better at shooting them down. Who cares? If Iran wants to try to escalate we'll just escalate further, blow up more stuff, keep the oil from flowing if we decide. It doesn't really hurt us much.

They were always in harm's way. The war could have waited, and Iran could have doubled or tripled its missile stockpile and then they really would have been in harm's way. You're falling in to the same trap I mentioned "country does X, end of analysis".

> Well, Iran closed the Straight and the world is facing biggest oil crises since 90ties. US was in fact incapable to prevent it.

Any country is incapable of preventing it then. Iran could always just mine the straight and threaten to launch missiles and go hide in the mountains. If Iran wasn't doing all of these awful things in the region, none of this would be happening.

Adjusted for inflation the price of oil isn't even the highest it's been this decade, let alone historically.

The price tripled from 2003-2008 as well.

>The war did not had to start at all

We probably won't know for twenty years if that's true or not. It's not as Iran's been some peaceful country for the last twenty years, they actively have sponsored terrorist organizations with the purpose of destabilizing the region. The country also sits on a wealth of natural resources but was solely researching nuclear power for peaceful purposes.

Really the big lesson for the next superpower is to simply act earlier. If you don't care about winning and just being a thorn in everyone's side, ballistic missiles are a great investment, and it should have been taken more seriously when Iran started stockpiling thousands of them.

Kuwait was “saved” by the US. The Iraq invasion was approved by the GCC, partly as payback for Kuwait, and anyways Iraq is not part of the GCC. The Qatar blockade was self-inflicted (and extremely stupid).

What happened this week - they announced they might start selling in yuan, they left the OPEC, and they started a new wealth fund to invest exclusively in China. That gives them an alternative for the dollar-peg since China is their biggest import partner anyways, while also giving their surplus yuan an alternative channel of investment into China.

Still they need the dollar-swap for the essentials - food from India and Pakistan, neither of which will accept their dirhams unless they get exclusive deals (which are not allowed in OPEC). It helps for them that India and Pakistan need lots of oil, and that a dollar peg benefits the UAE more than it does either nation. If the EU plays a greater role in trade, particularly in defence and maritime manufacturing, they will stockpile euros too, to the detriment of the dollar.

Still, they also bought some prime DC acreage to expand their US diplomatic corps, and will likely keep the Washington connection, so long as AI is perceived as useful. Right now, that's the only major export benefit the US provides the Gulf countries. This is them just hedging their bets.

Even UAE/saudi backing different groups in Sudan war is rooted in Yemen/brotherhood issue. Both Sudanese groups sent competing troops to fight in Yemen.

> While Saudi Arabia does not have any problems with Islamists and in fact more or less openly supports them, according to Donelli, the UAE sees radical religious groups as a threat to its domestic stability, as well as stability in the wider region. This distinction is also evident in the two countries’ support for the respective sides in Sudan. The UAE supports RSF’s more secular version of Islam, whereas the SAF under al-Burhan’s leadership is widely seen as more or less a continuation of the regime of Omar al-Bashir, which was heavily influenced by the Muslim Brotherhood. https://nai.uu.se/stories-and-events/news/2025-02-07-gulf-st...

Out of curiousity, what's your good outcome from the Chinese sending destroyers to the gulf?

UAE has a unique yada yada and also ended up with a surprisingly remarkably free economic index despite being a theocratic monarchy.

As did the monarchy Lichtenstein, British controlled Hong Kong, and the one-party state of Singapore (technically democratic, in practice it functions like a recallable monarchy).

Also of note the three richest countries by GDP PPP per capita are Monaco (hybrid monarchy with monarchist veto powers), Lichtenstein (hybrid monarchy with monarchist veto powers), Singapore (single party state).

This is where you're losing me. You seem to be suggesting that de-dollarization will cause a US financial pain large enough that it will cause significant pain to other countries, AND that it will happen so fast that the de-dollarization itself (which was the impetus for this pain!) will not be sufficient to shield them from it.

>The US is where people put their money because putting it elsewhere was riskier. But now the US might be more risky. So you diversify... to the places that were risky before. So you can only move to risky places. That risk eventually leads to some loss. It's a "least-worst option" situation, but the end result isn't going to be great.

Lots of assumptions here: 1. That the US is in fact becoming a much riskier place to invest (mostly only true for countries at risk of sanctions). 2. Other countries have stayed as risky as they always have been (do we know this isn't the case?). 3. That despite the inherent risk advantages of diversification to a wide range of countries/currencies is not significant enough to overcome the level of risk that the US has increased recently.

>That's now how capitalism works, that's how rich people work. The echo chamber of HN is full of upper-middle-class people with disposable incomes that are happy to waste money to feel emotionally better about their choices. But businesses aren't emotional, they're competitive. They want lower costs and higher profits. That means spending less. If a business can use a model that's 1/6th the price to get approximately the same results, they're going to do that, in order to gain a competitive edge. China is the place you go when you want to cut costs.

It is how capitalism works sometimes. If the cost of using the new technology is very cheap AND top-of-the-line options result in significant productivity increases, most companies will be willing to pay higher multiples of cost for even marginal increases in performance.

If I'm so-and-so software company spending millions on various business costs, I dont care if I'm spending .5% of my costs on claude code when I could be spending .1% on deepseek. I want the best one (even if it's just slightly better) because the costs are marginal anyway.

https://www.cbc.ca/news/world/potato-cartel-fries-tater-tots...

However, for your edification;

The wikipedia page for ADCOP i had given above, lists a whole set of links from where you can get more info. and data. One main source is the website of ADNOC (https://www.adnoc.ae/) who owns/operates ADCOP. The UAE has been calling in loans (eg. $3.5billion from Pakistan), asking the US for money (links given above) etc. all towards having enough to ramp up production to 5 million bpd by 2027. The defence cooperation between the UAE and US is longstanding, with the recent war merely ramping it up. The OPEC/OPEC+ is just a cartel which should have been broken up long ago.

The UAE’s Energy Playbook Is Paying Off Amid Global Turmoil - https://oilprice.com/Energy/Crude-Oil/The-UAEs-Energy-Playbo...

UAE To Hit Its Oil Capacity Increase Sooner Than Expected - https://oilprice.com/Latest-Energy-News/World-News/UAE-To-Hi...

Will the Iran war end Strait of Hormuz oil supremacy? - https://www.dw.com/en/iran-war-strait-of-hormuz-oil-supply-r...

In bid to bypass Hormuz chokepoint, Gulf countries scramble to ramp up infra - https://archive.ph/Xh1aq#selection-669.0-669.76

> instability of oil production that OPEC tries to prevent

First of all, if the goal is to prevent instability OPEC is doing a terrible job. Secondly, a cartel is not needed to prevent price instability, as demonstrated by the hundreds of other commodity markets around the world which are not controlled by cartels engaging in price fixing schemes.

As with any cartel, the purpose of OPEC is to maximize profits for its members, artificially fixing the price of oil at a level higher than what it would otherwise be in a free market not controlled by a cartel. Price stability is a side effect of that, not the goal.

If we have plenty of energy anyway we can just make exactly what we need, no need to drill for a mix of pot luck hydrocarbons. If we don't have enough energy anyway then we're burning hydrocarbons to get energy and we might as well use them as a feedstock too.

Substitution is highly impractical in the short term but in a conversations of decades/centuries it's significant. Venezuela's reserves alone could run the world's petrochemicals for 60 years (Gemini) so it's a realistic perspective. Together with other proven reserves we could be okay for centuries.

Recycling is sometimes an option too.

If words alone don't get them dancing to the exact tune you intended - throw a few momentary glances of pity at them, make certain they clearly see you but in the same second look away - like you are tying to hide that you pity them and you pity them so much, you just cant help but "see them that way" - apologize profusely - say things like, "I'm sure when you were younger" and "you have to be realistic" - "Can't have your hand in everything" - etc.

When they agree just go off about how much they don't have to do the thing, they dont owe you anything and have proven themselves already and dont need to again, blah, blah, blah (they soak this part up, so drag out the praise) on their way out - tell them how ashamed you are for being so incapable compared to them, tell them how much of an inspiration they are to you and how glad you are to know them, bc really - only they can save you.

999 times out a 1000 - the above bs will work like a charm.

I dont actually think DJT would be the above "hard" to manipulate - Bibi likely made several passing comments and then outright begged him - which I think literally happened bc Trump said he "practically had to beg Israel to help" - so I'm pretty sure thats exactly what happened reversely. It was likely very theatrical.

This war is Bibis wet dream fantasy made real by a narcissist with an immense amount of actual power. Nobody would have to beg him, he has been begging for this since the 90s.